No Ordinary Rain
by Jeanie205
Summary: Raven Reyes is much to busy trying to save the world to have time for romance, especially with an arrogant grounder king. But sometimes romance just sneaks up on you anyway. Story is set in the same storyverse and takes place at the end of my multi-chapter fic The Journey.


The day had started out sunny enough, but a quick glance at the sky told Raven it would probably be raining very soon.

Ordinarily, she loved the rain, considered it one of the wonders of living on the ground. Water, such a precious commodity on the Ark, falling freely from the sky to wash everything clean. But today Raven had hoped for sun. Something warm and bright to see the travelers off on what she knew might well be a perilous journey.

If you'd asked them, both men would certainly claim that they'd volunteered for this mission with the purest of motives. But as far as Raven could tell, it had come down to nothing more or less than a pissing contest.

Bellamy had spoken up first, interrupting while Kane was still explaining it all. But he'd barely gotten the words "I'll go" out of his mouth when Roan had challenged him. From there it had degenerated into a game of _anything you can do I can do better._

Which of them had been on the ground all his life? Who was more familiar with the technology they'd be using? Blah, blah, blah. Christ, Bellamy had even protested that Roan didn't know how to drive the damn Rover! Like a guy as savvy as Roan couldn't learn something that simple in about five minutes flat.

Idiots, both of them! Everyone's life hung in the balance, and these two jackasses had been making it _personal_.

Raven had been pissed. She'd worked day and night, trying to find some kind of solution, and when this idea had presented itself, she'd brought it to Kane immediately. And he'd taken it to the committee, the group of Skaikru, Trikru, and Azgeda who'd been trying for weeks to figure out how to deal with the fact that every damn nuclear plant on Earth was melting down. That soon most of the fucking planet would be irradiated all over again.

And all of them with it.

But what she'd found was still only a theory. Raven needed data. She needed facts. Because if she was wrong, if this wasn't the right solution, if they needed to look for safe haven elsewhere instead of focusing on this? She'd have killed them all.

So she needed someone to take the Rover, drive the few hundred miles down the coast, and get her some answers so she could make this fucking life-or-death decision.

What she _didn't_ need was childish bickering.

She'd been about to call them both out for the assholes they were when she heard Bellamy say, "Best of both worlds. We do it together."

Raven's jaw had dropped. Bellamy Blake and King Roan of Azgeda were going to work together? Were going to _travel_ together? It seemed to her like a recipe for disaster. And apparently Kane felt the same.

"Try not to kill each other," he'd said, while reluctantly agreeing to the plan.

(Since coming to the ground, Raven had found that Kane sometimes had a very dry sense of humor. But this time she didn't necessarily think he'd been kidding.)

That had been a week ago. Today they'd finally be on their way. God help them.

Bellamy had wanted to leave sooner, but Roan had had unexpected trouble settling things with his clan. Raven supposed that wasn't so strange. He was, after all, the freaking king. His advisors had tried to demand he bring along a couple of warriors, but Bellamy wasn't having it. He insisted it had to be just the two of them, in the Rover.

"We need to travel light and quick," he'd said, and Roan had finally agreed.

Raven figured that in the end Bellamy probably hadn't minded the delay that much. It had given Clarke and him enough time, and maybe enough of a reason, to finally get their shit together. She'd despaired of them ever wising up, had even been prepared to lock them in a room together. But in the end, it hadn't been necessary.

They'd appeared one morning at breakfast holding hands, and had been all lovey-dovey ever since. Raven sighed. She knew this mission was going to be damn hard on Clarke.

And now this morning it was finally happening. She had a plan that might work, and arguably the two most capable guys she knew were taking off today to get her the data she needed. Raven should be, if not ecstatic, then at least...hopeful. Expectant. Maybe even optimistic.

But instead she was agitated. Irritated. Worried. And she knew damn well it had begun the moment the Azgedan had volunteered for the mission.

Not that she didn't care about, worry about, Bellamy Blake. Of course she did. They were friends. Good friends. She'd started to worry the moment he spoke. But what she hadn't expected was the punch to the gut that had come when she realized that Roan would be going, too.

She'd already been telling herself for weeks that she must be nuts, that the arrogant Azgedan couldn't possibly be into her. And that she sure as hell wasn't into him. But then she heard from Bellamy that Roan had asked about her, and suddenly she was aware of every look, every word, that passed between them. Of every moment he was around and every breath he took.

He'd been gone for almost a week, taking care of his kingly duties or whatever the hell he did when he wasn't in Arkadia. And every single day Raven had told herself that of course she didn't care for him.

Because she didn't _do_ romance. Not since everything that happened with Finn had broken first her heart and then, for a while, her spirit. She'd told herself she was never letting that happen again.

So instead she'd done friends, and work, and focused on her awesome brain. And left her heart to languish behind thick, high walls.

Nope, Raven didn't do romance. It hadn't worked with another Arkadian, and she wasn't about to try with a grounder. And certainly not with some fucking grounder king.

By the end of the week, she was breathing easier, convinced she'd worried for nothing. Right up to the moment that Roan had ridden in, dismounted, and come looking straight for her. Just as she'd known he would. She'd taken one look, and her lungs had seized up.

And now here they were, side by side next to the gate, waiting for Clarke and Bellamy to say their goodbyes.

It was a joke, really. She, Raven Reyes, standing around making pointless conversation with the only person she'd ever found who was worse at small talk than she was. Finn had been the smooth-tongued one, she remembered. The one who could use words to charm the bark off a tree. If they'd had trees on the Ark.

Eventually her conversation with Roan petered out, first to muttered syllables and then to complete silence.

Raven supposed she could duck out, use the approaching rainstorm as an excuse. But she told herself she shouldn't leave, that this was her mission, and she owed it to them to see them off. And besides, Clarke might need a comforting hug after Bellamy left.

But the truth was, she couldn't have dragged herself away from the man standing silently beside her if her life depended on it.

Raven side-eyed Roan, found him staring down at her intently. Her breath caught in her throat. Would he say something? Should _she_?

Then two things happened at once. Bellamy nodded to Roan that it was time to leave, and Raven felt the first drops of rain. On her arm, on her head. She pulled her threadbare red jacket more tightly around her, and watched as the two men slid into the Rover.

He'd been standing more than a foot away, but Raven felt the loss of Roan's warmth the moment he left her side. And...she'd missed her chance.

But really, what could she have said anyway?

It was then she noticed that the Rover wasn't turning down the southward track after all, but instead going up the path toward the tree line.

Raven peered through the steadily-increasing rainfall, frowning in surprise at the figure on horseback at the edge of the woods. She watched as Bellamy emerged from the Rover.

"Is that...?"

"Octavia." Clarke nodded, beside her suddenly. "She came to see Bellamy off."

"And that's a good thing, isn't it?" Raven glanced at Clarke as she asked the question.

Clarke shrugged. "Let's hope so."

The words were barely out of her mouth when Octavia turned her horse around, heading into the forest, and Bellamy slid back into the Rover.

And then Raven realized something else. The Rover had to come right back past the gate to head south. So maybe she hadn't missed her chance after all. She still didn't have any idea what she was going to say, but she didn't really have time to think about that. With as slow as her damn leg made her, she was barely going to get out there in time.

The rain had become a downpour by then, falling in deafening sheets, and Raven could hardly hear Clarke asking what the hell she thought she was doing as she hurried out the gate, her haste making her even more awkward than usual. She struggled onto the middle of the track, confident that Bellamy would see her and stop.

The Rover screeched to a halt only a few feet in front of her.

"Raven, what the hell!" Bellamy was half out the door, but Raven hardly noticed him. She stared at the windshield, unable to see through its water-covered surface. Waiting.

The passenger door opened and Roan stepped out.

"I'll only be a minute, Skaikru," he told Bellamy, his eyes on Raven, as she stood there, unmoving, the rain lashing down on her.

"What is it, Raven?" Roan said as he approached, his deep voice resonating above the sound of the storm.

She faltered just a bit. "I...I never got a chance to say goodbye," she said a little breathlessly.

At that, he was suddenly right in front of her, his wet face wreathed in smiles.

"A sad omission, I think," he said, reaching up with both hands to wipe away the water that was running in rivulets across her face.

Then his arms were around her, and he was pulling her close, and he was kissing her. And Raven was cold, and she was hot, and she was soaked to the skin, and she'd never in her life felt more wonderful. And she couldn't seem to stop herself from grabbing onto his shoulders and kissing him back for all she was worth.

God, her timing sucked, she thought through a haze of desire, as they finally pulled away from each other.

"If you let anything happen to you, I'll kill you myself," she said, unable to keep the smile off her face.

"I will bear that in mind." Roan's eyes glinted, but he nodded solemnly. "And...we'll talk when I get back."

His sigh told Raven that maybe he thought her timing sucked, too.

"Get inside and get yourself dry, Raven," he said, kissing her again lightly before turning back toward the Rover. But Raven stayed just where she was until the vehicle had disappeared into the rainy morning.

Clarke was at her side then, and as much as Raven never wanted any help, she was suddenly aware that her leg was throbbing and she was cold through and through.

Clarke hoisted Raven's arm around her shoulder and together they made their way back through the gate and into the shelter of the fallen Ark.

But it wasn't until much later, when the two of them were warm and dry and drinking herbal tea, that Clarke asked her about it.

"So...what was that, Raven? You and Roan, I mean?"

Raven hesitated, trying to put it together in her head in a way that would make sense.

She sighed. "It's like the rain. It washes everything clean. Makes everything new. I think life is like that sometimes. You can begin again." She looked at Clarke over her cup. "And I want to try."

Clarke nodded. "I understand."

They sipped their tea.


End file.
